Sunday, November 21, 2010

Last Dance With New New

The pancreatic situation has been moving pretty slowly since my last post. I have to have a biopsy on Wednesday, and then hopefully we will finally get the surgery on the books. The good news is that after two weeks of complete inactivity post-Berryman epic, I actually started feeling better on my own and I've started doing a little bit of easy riding and some simple bodyweight strength training at home. I'm not really training because a) I don't want to push myself too hard to and start to get weak and sick again b) I know I'm going to have to take more time off after the surgery, so even if I'm feeling better, trying to mount a comeback is impractical until after the surgery. I'm basically just trying to maintain my strength and muscle tone until I'm fully healed and ready to start my 2011 base training.

That being said, something was niggling at me to race one more cross race if I was able. I remember feeling bad for New New as Adam was loading his 'cross bikes up for the USGP Louisville and I was loading up my 29er for the Berryman Epic while she sat in the back room of the basement, all dressed up with nowhere to go for the weekend. So I felt like she needed one last run before winter.

This weekend provided the perfect opportunity with Backyard Cross, presented by Adam's team, the Speedway Wheelmen. The race was at Adam's teammate's property, which was intended to be a housing addition, but currently only contains one house. So making the best of a bad economic situation, the place has been turned into a very large cyclocross course until the housing market picks back up. I wanted to participate in this race, which is part of the Indiana Cyclocross Cup, the younger less-attended sibling of the OVCX series, which the Speedway Wheelmen are trying to get going. With no other Cat 3/4 women entered, I was able to boost their attendance numbers a bit, and get a "win" without blowing myself up. Of course, once the gun went off, I had a hard time "riding easy", but I would make myself back off when I felt like I was going super hard, and I didn't allow myself to try to pass the one junior who passed me. So I got my last race in and don't feel like I pushed myself hard enough to do any damage, plus I got a sweet bag o' swag for my "win".

About Me

This is a chronicle of my many phases as an amateur bike racer, the most recent of which is my attempt to befriend the rocks of Rothrock State Forest in Pennsylvania along with my fiance', Frank. We live in State College, PA with two kitties, Mushu and Clemmie Badcat.